


First Contact

by hikarimew



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Bartimaeus AU, Gen, drammatic monologues, excessive rambling, turns out that if you mix s0 atem and bartimaeus you just get ygotas yami
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 00:49:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17478122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hikarimew/pseuds/hikarimew
Summary: Atem had been around for a while. He has seen countless humans over the centuries, and believed his experience to be flawless. But nothing had prepared him for the young boy in that summy room in Egypt.





	First Contact

  Atem was always a bit of a drama queen when summoned. He had a penchant for loud, flashy entrances, and this time would be no different. If he was getting forced onto the human realm, he’d might as well try to enjoy it. Today’s show consisted of a howling sandstorm, that parted way to one of his best go-to forms: a long, thin dragon, red as a burning sky and with two layered mouths showing rows upon rows of terribly sharp teeth.

 

  The effect was someone lessened thanks to the pentacle’s size constraints, but it had done the job for millennia. He’d have prefered a wide-open field in order to better scream towards the heavens, but instead it was small room covered in pieces of parchment everywhere. Typical magician stuff.

 

  Where was he, anyway? Thanks to how the Other Place functioned, he had no idea how long it had been since he’d been summoned (though it would never be long enough), but humans couldn’t have evolved enough in that time to radically modify the surrounding landscape, army of spirits or not.

 

  Ah, right, there was a window behind him. Now that he got a look around, the room was quite open and airy. And no wonder, too. He couldn’t see far out the window, but he’d recognize Egypt anywhere. It was always hard to forget the place you were first summoned. Would he still know anyone in the palace? He doubted the spirits in service of the royal family would have much rotation, and he might even get a chance eventually to visit one of the temples, see if anyone had tried to change the pantheon again, and--

 

  “Ahem…”

 

  A small voice dragged him back from his thoughts. Right, he’d been summoned here. Honestly, most magicians were so straight to the point with what they wanted done, all bossy and up in your face (or faces). This boy had so little presence, Atem had forgotten he’d been summoned for a moment there.

 

  And he was a boy. Atem couldn’t see him as having finished puberty. He was small, despite his hair spiking madly upwards in a mess of colour-- Was that a new fad, maybe? Considering the boy was also a lot paler than he’d even remembered any egyptian being, he couldn’t discard the possibility. Who knew how long it had been, anyway? Not him, that’s for sure.

 

  “No need to hold your tongue, boy! Speak your wish, so I may grant it!” _And quickly get out of here_ , he amended internally. This form didn’t exactly have limbs made for comfortably crossing, but hopefully his tone got the point across. Atem might not have been the highest ranking djinni out there, but he was confident in himself to get the job done fast. Kids like those rarely had great things to ask, like building giant walls. Giant walls were the worst.

 

  “Oh! I was just wondering if you’d play a game of asseb with me!”

 

  What.

 

  “Did you have that game yet, last time you were here? It’s from Ur! Also called Twenty Squares?”

 

  “I know what it is!” Atem snapped back, a bit more defensively than he should have. “After all, one of the many names I have been called through the ages is--”

 

  “--King of Games, right? It was in these papers where I found your name! Mana also told me that they weren’t just hyping up your skills, too, so I’ve been looking forward to this!”

 

  _What_.

 

  (At that point, the boy had been about to leave the pentacle to reach the game board, fingers hovering millimeters from the lines on the floor, before catching himself and pulling his hand back. Too bad. A moment further and Atem could’ve gotten out of there, while still ridding the world of one more magician on the way out. But alas.)

 

  All right, sure, he had been called that occasionally. A warning epithet. A sly demon, a master of challenges, someone who guiled his way into gambling magician’s lives against his freedom and _won_. It was a name he wore (smugly) proudly, and it might have had spread around during his summons throughout the world. (Not that we was a bragger, of course, it just came up in conversation.)

 

  But a human, not only using the title, but summoning him for it? To play a game? Either he was very arrogant, or very stupid.

 

  Atem laughed, changing his form with ease. The sky dragon was nice and all, but the body/arm ratio wasn’t helpful to board games. Instead, he thought he might see what kind of person this magician was, and copied his form. He took the boy’s unsettled expression as a win.

 

  “Very well, then. What are your stakes? Knowledge? Power?” Even in this form, his voice still boomed and carried further than the boys. Some good things can never be hidden, he supposed.

 

  “Uh… I just wanted to play a game? Most people around here don’t have time to play, and the ones that do are busy…” He looked bashful. He’d summoned a _“demon”_ to play board games with, and was embarrassed at his reason for doing so. It was inconceivable to Atem, but what else could he do? Not _leave_ , for one.

 

  “Then let us begin the game!” Keep up the strong face. The boy was a magician, after all. This was probably some sort of ploy to throw him off. Had to be.

 

  But ploys or not, Atem had won his title as King of Games. Not always fairly, but he’d won! Always! No matter what, the boy was a boy. A human. Young and unable to match his centuries of experience.

 

**…**

**…………**

 

  Then why in blazes was he losing!? Losing! Him, Atem, the King of Games, the Sky Scourge, the Obelisk, the Winged Dragon of Ra himself! _Losing!_ Even the thought of the word itself was searing itself into his essence like iron. And the most insulting bit was that the boy wasn’t even being mean. He was just actually trying to play the game well and _not_ spit on centuries of Atem winning. How dare he?

 

  Had he been human, Atem would have been sweating.

 

  Of course, in the end, he won. He did not let it show, but it was by the skin of his (usually several rows of) teeth. Were he not a djinn with the capacity for several simultaneous threads of thought, he probably would have lost. But he didn’t. He won. And that’s what mattered.

 

  If only the boy had the _decency_ to look upset at the loss. Big, wide eyed grins were generally _not_ what Atem liked seeing when he won. Curses.

 

  “That was amazing!” Of course it was, Atem _was_ amazing, thank you. “Can we do that again sometime?”

 

  “Wish to review your strategies before trying again?”

 

  “Well, that too, but it hurts to keep spirits here in this world. I wouldn’t want to keep you here too long. But I’d love to play again, if you’d like!”

 

**_What._ **That was… Nice. Caring. Considerate. Even though Atem hadn’t been summoned long enough to feel more than the general base discomfort of being forced into a physical form, to have a human actually consider his well-being was… Disconcerting. Enough to bring every one of his concurrent trains of thought for a moment, a moment long enough for even the human to notice. How embarrassing.

 

  “If you don’t want to come back, it’s fine! Playing against me was probably a bit boring for you,” and he had the gall to laugh, “but I’d be really happy if you’d play games with me again, Atem.”

 

  And there was his name, spoken so casually and simply. The blighted, cursed name that brought him to this world of pain and suffering. Being spoken not as a command, not as a means to direct punishment. It was simply said. It was more off-putting than an punishment spell, and despite all his centuries, it was a completely new thing for Atem. He wasn’t sure he liked it.

 

  “Hmph. Quite a bold request from someone in such a position of power. Not only do you have the summons, but I do not even know your name.

 

  “Oh. Oh! I’m so sorry! I got so distracted, I completely forgot! My name is Yugi.” Ah, yes, definitely foreign and was that his. Name. His actual true name. Just given, like that? A quick glance around the room did reveal that name etched into game boards and scrawled over letters.

 

  “You’d give your name to a demon?” That couldn’t be right.

 

  “The only danger of spirits knowing your name is returning punishment curses, and I’d never use something like that! You’re already humoring me by spending time with me, after all.”

 

  Yup, okay, that settled it. Atem was officially down for the count. This tiny little human was utterly incomprehensible. How could a person that made so little sense have properly learned complicated summoning designs and incantations, he couldn’t know.

 

  “I suppose there would be no harm in humoring you with another game.”

 

  Atem was not one for rambling thoughts and overblown narrations, but he was quite sure Yugi’s smile was brighter than the sun. Maybe the kid was part-djinn, somehow. Such brightness was clearly not of this crummy Earth.

 

  “Thank you very much!” oh god, he was getting brighter, how did this happen--

 

  Thankfully, the dismissal came quickly. Atem dreaded what might have happened to him if he was exposed to Yugi any longer.


End file.
